The word Ratchet has become an American slang word that has the younger generations incorporating the word into their daily vocabulary. The word has been heard in songs used mainly in rap. Ratchet is often referred to as women acting ghetto, or sloppy; however, there is no correct term for the word. When doing a search for the word, many definitions appear, most having the similar meaning. According to Webster’s dictionary, the official definition a device made up of a wheel or bar with many teeth along its edge in between which a piece fits so that the wheel or bar can move only in one direction .Yet, the term is still a word that people are trying to determine the meaning. Because of the lack of definition, some people are unsure how to incorporate the word into a sentence. The slang term ratchet has become more widely used on social media. On Twitter and Instagram alone, there are over three million hashtags referencing the term.. Slang words now can be used into a word and possibly become a word that still has yet to find a meaning. My interaction with the word takes place at work where the word has evolved into becoming an everyday word, toward the meaning of the word and how social media uses ratchet.
The first time I had ever heard the word ratchet was at my work at Surrender. It was being referred toward a girl who was drunk, the exact sentence was, “Man that girl is acting really ratchet, and she is all over the place.” Having no idea what the word meant, I let it go. As time went on, I started to hear it more and more as for the word seemed to be everywhere by then. Discovering that Ratchet was only being used toward at Women who are acting obnoxious, I had a pretty good assumption of what the word meant. The word would...
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...rds seems to be a growing trend that is transforming from the computer vocabulary to our everyday speaking vocabulary. This slang word will eventually become an English word that you will be able to find in a dictionary with a corrected definition, leaving thoughts if people will still use it as their own term or to the correct term to whatever it becomes too because this word already has a defined meaning toward It being used as a tool. Usage of words have also changed, so a 2nd defined word will quickly be under this and the 2nd definition will be used a lot more frequent than the tool rarely gets used as. In a matter of time slang words will soon become just another word that will be used in our modern English vocabulary thus for killing the original words that were once thought to be irreplaceable. Choosing to use these slang words or not is our choice now.
The current decade’s slang is very important to the teen culture. Teens often use slang to speak only to one another and not to adults as said in the following article, “Every generation has its slang — new words that allow kids to communicate without their parents understanding”(53 Slang… 1). Kids will use slang terms to communicate without adults being able to comprehend what exactly kids are saying, it is basically a secret code. Since the 1930’s slang has evolved in countless ways. These words will constantly be changing, even within the same decade as said in this Huffington Post article, “words change all the time and overtime”(“These 12…” 1). Words within the English language can constantly have little tweaks added to them; sometimes this will create an entire new word. Slang terms can change throughout decades and era’s rapidly even though it is within a short time span, and this article supports the fact that words do not need decades to change it can take as little time as a few
Hip-Hop became characterized by an aggressive tone marked by graphic descriptions of the harshness and diversity of inner-city life. Primarily a medium of popular entertainment, hip-hop also conveys the more serious voices of youth in the black community. Though the approaches of rappers became more varied in the latter half of the 1980s, message hip-hop remained a viable form for addressing the problems faced by the black community and means to solve those problems. The voices of "message" hip...
In the article “ From Fly to Bitches and Hoes” by Joan Morgan, she often speaks about the positive and negative ideas associated with hip-hop music. Black men display their manhood with full on violence, crime, hidden guilt, and secret escapes through drugs and alcohol. Joan Morgan’s article views the root causes of the advantage of misogyny in rap music lyrics. In the beginning of the incitement her desires shift to focus on from rap culture condemnation to a deeper analysis of the root causes. She shows the hidden causes of unpleasant sexism in rap music and argues that we need to look deeper into understanding misogyny. I agree with Joan Morgan with the stance that black men show their emotions in a different way that is seen a different perspective.
For example, a lot of colloquialism was used when Aibileen, a character in The Help, said, “I reckon that’s the risk you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns” (Stockett 2). Because African Americans were treated unequally, they were denied a good education just because they spoke very differently than white people. The speech of an African American was one of the many reasons why whites were racist towards them. Also, Aibileen used slang when she said, “Around Lunchtime, when my stories come on tee-vee, it gets quiet out in the carport” (22). An African American’s word choice may be considered colloquialism because they use a lot of slang in their daily language. Aibileen, from The Help, is one character that talks with a very uneducated mannerism. Overall, the way that an African American talks can decide on how a racist a white person was towards
The constant changing of technology and social norms makes difficult for different generations to understand one another and fully relate to each other. Diction and slang change as years pass and what is socially acceptable may have been prohibited in the previous generations.
One example is the use of the word “fuck”. In my house hold growing up I attempted to use this work once when I dropped a plate. It was the angriest my father has ever been at me. This word is often considered the worst of the curse words in modern English. This simple utterance has been in use since the early 16th century. Fuck often evokes strong emotion and response, considered one of the seven dirty words that can’t be said on American broadcast
The most common theme in hip-hop music videos is the objectification of females. Women are portrayed as sexual objects throughout the videos. In some videos they are seen as a type of reward or trophy for the male. Other times they are seen holding money to gain the attention of men or are even portrayed as slaves willing to do anything to please the men in the videos. According to Catherine MacKinnon, “Objectification involves treating a person, someone with humanity, as an object of merely instrumental worth, and consequently reducing this person to the status of an object for use” (1989). Her point relates to the hip-hop music videos because the idea that they transmit is that women are only objects available at anytime for men’s use. When women are objectified men feel more “powerful” or “successful” by showing the have control over women.
David A. Fein and Milton Millhauser have both written articles pertaining to the topic of slang. Fein and Millhauser provide two different viewpoints, and they employ information and their opinions in different ways. David A. Fein’s article, “Vulgarity by Teaching Slang in the Classroom”, makes a good argument as to why slang should be utilized in teaching, while Milton Millhauser’s article, “The Case Against Slang”, explains that slang is to be avoided in teaching, but fails to provide a good argument for his claim.
Most people believe that they know what hip hop is. Yet, these same people are more familiar with rap music than hip hop. Rap music tends to b the music broadcasted on television and radio stations alike. Hip-Hop itself is relates to a culture and history of peoples. Hip-Hop tells the stories of people oppressed in urban ghettos in all cities, and it promotes change and a transition in those oppressed. Dr. Charles Pinckney author of The Influence of Hip Hop Culture on the Perceptions, Attitudes, Values and Lifestyles of African American College Students states that "Hip hop culture is a form of musical art in words and stories that describe critical messages that are spoken over music" (Pinckney). William Boone who has conducted research in hip hop best explains the phenomenon of Hip Hop as, " Art in "the hood". Hip Hop is the antitheses of economic discrimination and social alienation in Americas impoverished African American communities" (Boone).These origins of ...
Nurse Ratched represents the dictatorial dehumanization, emasculation, and mechanization of society or, in Chief Bromden’s words, the “Combine”. The narrator, Chief Bromden, states that nurse Ratched comes into the ward with tools such as “wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard glitter, tiny pills that gleam like porcelain, needles, forceps, watchmaker 's pliers, rolls of copper wire…” (P.4) with the intention of adjusting and fixing what society thinks is broken. Nurse Ratched’s name, similar to the tool ratchet, suggests that she is an “instrument of control” that is used to “ensure motion in one direction only” (Foley p.36). Through abuse (psychological and physical) and drugs, Nurse Ratched creates a mechanical or robotic feeling to
There are different origins of the word. In German terms the word “ficken” means “to strike”. In Latin the word “future or fustis” means a “staff or cudgel”. The Irish word “bot” means “the male member”. Another Latin word “battuere” means “to beat”. All of these words are correspondence sexually to downgrade women. “No one that I know, least of all my students, would fail to question the values of a society whose literature and entertainment rested heavily on racial or ethnic pejoratives. Are the values of a society whose literature and entertainment rest as heavily as ours on sexual pejoratives any less questionable?” (para.
Culture is constantly changing: the prevailing beliefs and trends of one period can vary substantially from those of another. A significant consequence of this cultural flux is gradual evolution in the meanings of some words. Since language is naturally tied to culture, it is not surprising that these changes occur. Words have meaning only in the context of the current social climate; therefore their definitions change synchronously with cultural progression. The meaning of the word gossip, for example, changed several times over, from its original definition of kindred relation to its present definition of empty talk. How did this progression take shape? As society adopted new trends and beliefs, the meaning of the word gossip changed from having religious connotations to having more social connotations.
Everyone has a word or phrase that purely defines who they are, how they speak or the way they act. In this case, the slang word that defines me most is LOLOL. Almost everyone in American knows the slang word as “LOL,” which stands for laughing out loud. LOLOL means the exact same thing as the slang word “LOL” but it represents a continuation of someone or multiple people “lots of laughing out
Unfortunately I would like to start off how mobile phones cause people to use slang .I was messaging my friend and I wrote “Hi, how are you?” She replied saying “wuu2”. Since when was “what you up to” know to be like that? Didn’t she have 30 seconds more to write it in a better way? It’s as if she thought she had somewhere more urgent to go. Despite the fact that it could save her time, I totally agree that it is not good to use slang
According to Anne Curzan, a language historian, it's important to note that humans make dictionaries, therefore a dictionary only provides the opinions of the most commonly used meanings of a word. It's not a set list of “right definitions” because people use them differently for how they see fit. Words’ meanings can evolve over time due to slang usage and the influence of other languages and cultures. When a bigger group of people discover a slang version of a word, it might become popular, which could make that the most common meaning for the word. Also, a word in one society might mean something completely different in another society. If languages or cultures intertwine with others, then the common definitions used might change with it. All of this can contribute to the evolution of a word's meaning, and this is acceptable because even though words may change over time, so does the language as a whole